T singer, p.1
T Singer, page 1
T. Singer
Also by Dag Solstad
•
Armand V.
T. Singer
Singer suffered from a peculiar sense of shame that didn’t bother him on a daily basis but did pop up occasionally; he would remember some sort of painful misunderstanding that made him stop short, rigid as a post, with a look of despair on his face, which he immediately hid by holding up both hands as he loudly exclaimed: “No, no!” This might happen anywhere at all, on the street, in a closed room, on the platform at the train station, and he was always alone whenever it occurred, although he could be in places where other people were gathered, passing him in both directions, for instance on the street or in a park, or in an exhibition hall, and these people would see him stop, rigid as a post, holding his hands in front of his face, and they would hear him exclaim those despairing words: “No, no.” Or he might be suddenly overcome with shame over something that had happened long ago, a specific scene from his past, most often from way back in his childhood, a memory that would pop up without warning, and again he would raise both hands in front of his face as if to hide as those despairing words burst out: “No, no.” One such specific childhood memory that filled him with this sort of intense shame happened to pop up when he was in the process of moving to Notodden, he was thirty-four years old back then; but it also popped up now, more than fifteen years later, at the time this is being written, and right now it was as raw and unexpected as when he was thirty-four or even twenty-five, for that matter.
So this childhood memory must have had great significance for him, and it offers an insight into the underlying pattern of his life, although it distinguishes itself as something that has been rejected or expelled from this underlying pattern, as something he does not want to acknowledge. It is, in all its “insignificance,” a burden he cannot bear to carry, and yet — Singer must admit this — it is undeniably an important part of himself, its very presence, despite his palpable rejection, something to which he cannot respond without being paralyzed by an agonizing feeling of personal shame.
In brief, the incident goes like this: Singer and A (who is his best friend) are in a store that sells toys. A has picked up a supposedly amusing windup toy, which he winds up to show Singer how it works. The women sales clerks are not happy, and sooner or later they step in to tell A to stop doing that; Singer doesn’t think the windup toy is especially amusing, but he pretends he does in order to please A, and he does so in a strident voice with forced laughter that no doubt gets on the nerves of the sales clerks. Suddenly Singer notices that his uncle is in the store and has probably been there for a while. His uncle is watching him. Singer sees that his uncle is looking at him as he loudly tries to please A with his forced voice and feigned laughter. Singer sees that his uncle looks astonished. Singer is embarrassed.
His uncle greets him and offers a few mundane comments. Singer greets him in return, and then he and A slip out of the store. They head down the street, scurrying along, looking in store windows at random, stepping into an entryway, stepping back out, roaming here and there; an ordinary afternoon in a small town for anyone growing up who’s still a child, near the coast in the Vestfold county of Norway. But something has happened that has stuck with Singer and will make him remember this incident decades later, something that embarrassed him and will continue to embarrass him whenever he thinks about it.
It’s not the fact that his uncle saw them acting in such an uncouth manner. It’s not because he was being a naughty boy that Singer felt embarrassed, even though that was exactly what he was. He and A had gone into the toy store and proceeded to do whatever they liked. They had boldly started playing with the toys on display. It’s true that when his uncle showed up, they left at once, but neither Singer nor A felt embarrassed because Singer’s uncle had seen them doing whatever they liked in the toy store. Singer wasn’t even afraid that his uncle might tell his father; if he did, it really didn’t matter, and Singer knew that. He could calmly set off after leaving the store to roam the streets, going in and out of an entryway, with his cap askew and mischief radiating from his boyish figure.
It was something else that his uncle had caught him doing, something that brought a look of astonishment to the man’s face when he caught Singer at it. The loud, forced voice, the feigned laughter. That was what his uncle had observed, and with a sense of astonishment that made Singer feel embarrassed, even ashamed, decades later. Not because of the laughter itself, but because his uncle had observed him laughing in that strident and phony manner. In terms of A, to whom the laughter was directed in an attempt to please him, it made no difference that Singer had carried on in such a duplicitous fashion, even if A might have noticed this. If he had, and if he’d asked his friend, once they were out on the street, why he’d acted in such a phony manner, Singer could have simply denied it. Or he could have confirmed it and said that A had bored him with his childish behavior, but he didn’t want to offend him and so he’d tried to laugh along with him, though he couldn’t quite pull it off. In other words, Singer wasn’t embarrassed by his own forced, childish laughter when it came to the person the laughter was intended for, even if that person had noticed and pointed it out.
It’s possible to imagine Singer being able to laugh like that in other contexts, for instance at home, which would have annoyed his father, prompting him to tell his son to stop that fake laughing. Then Singer would have been a little embarrassed, but mostly offended. And if his father had mentioned it to others, such as his uncle, saying that he was displeased by his son’s strident, false laughter, and if he said this in front of his son so that he heard him, then Singer would have felt insulted, even betrayed, and he would have never forgiven his father. But he wouldn’t have been embarrassed.
It was his uncle’s presence that had evoked the feeling of shame. It wasn’t the laughter itself, but the fact that he’d been seen. And by someone who knew him and who was astonished. Astonished by Singer’s affected voice, by the way he was laughing. Astonished that Singer, whom he knew so well, would suddenly, when thinking he was unseen, utter such a horribly phony laugh. So loudly. So fake. Caught in the act, and possessed of such a false laughter. A child. Caught and exposed. Singer hoped that his uncle wouldn’t mention it at home. Even if he would have only felt insulted and not embarrassed if his father had caught him laughing in that way, he still fervently hoped that his uncle wouldn’t mention it at home. Because he knew what his uncle would say if he did. He’d known all his life what his uncle would say. That Singer had such a “strange” laugh. He was convinced — even today as this is being written — that his uncle wouldn’t have said that Singer had such a phony laugh, or a forced voice, but that he’d had such a “strange” laugh.
That’s actually the extent of it. A minor, inconsequential incident in Singer’s life, remembered from his childhood. The fact that he once felt embarrassed at being observed by his uncle is not all that difficult to understand. What is less understandable is why this incident should settle so permanently in his subconscious, occasionally popping up as an image in his conscious mind, so that he not only recalled feeling embarrassed at the time but continued to feel embarrassed whenever the incident popped up, even experiencing a profound sense of shame at the memory.
When this book begins, Singer is thirty-four years old and in the process of moving to Notodden to start a new phase in his life. Looking back, he sees that his life has been marked primarily by restlessness, brooding, spinelessness, and abruptly abandoned plans. To other people, he might appear as a distinct and clear personality, but in his own mind he is vague, even anonymous, which is what he prefers. Should he feel shame for that reason? No, and normally he was not tormented by such feelings. So why couldn’t he deal with the embarrassment of his childhood — when he was observed by his uncle as he uttered such unnatural and forced laughter — without being overwhelmed by an unbearable feeling of shame on his own behalf? This was both quite annoying and a mystery to him.
There were also other incidents of an “erased persona” that popped up in his mind and overwhelmed him in a similar fashion, incidents that weren’t linked to his childhood but might be things that happened to him as a grown man, in some cases even quite recently. Incidents that had to do with awkward mistakes, or misunderstandings, if you will.
Singer enters a dark room, a room where a movie is going to be shown, or the setting of a jazz concert. Singer is running a little late, and he sits down at a table, joining others whom he knows. This might be right before the film starts or the jazz concert begins, and the light is dim, so that he catches only glimpses of faces in the dark, if at a jazz concert, faintly illuminated by the candles on the tables. He says something to the man next to him, who is B. But B looks astonished and replies in a somewhat disoriented manner, as if he doesn’t quite understand why Singer said what he just said, even though what Singer said isn’t the least bit remarkable. Then Singer understands that it’s not B sitting next to him, but K. The instant he realizes that he is guilty of a misunderstanding, he feels totally disconcerted and doesn’t know what he should do. He feels like disappearing, sinking through the floor in the classic sense, but unfortunately that’s not possible, no matter how dark it is, nor can he make use of the dark to simply run away, because the damage has been done, and K knows full well that Singer is the one who has sat down in the vacant chair next to him and then addressed him in that odd fashion. Odd for K, because Singer doesn’t usually talk to K in that way; B is the one he usually
Singer is mortified because he has mistaken K for B. K is taken aback but he doesn’t know that Singer is guilty of making an embarrassing mistake. At least he doesn’t know that he has been mistaken for B. What he heard was Singer speaking to him in an unnatural voice, which means that Singer now needs to be wary of him, and so he continues talking feverishly, in such a way that he won’t further draw K’s attention to what just occurred, because the thought that K might discover that Singer had actually mistaken him for B is unbearable. Then Singer would feel exposed, and he would sit there feeling so ashamed at addressing K in such a manner.
This incident exists in many different versions in Singer’s consciousness. Common to all of them is the fact that the configuration of B, K, and Singer is such that it’s impossible for Singer to confess to K that he has mistaken him for B. This is true whether B and K are both acquaintances but not close friends of Singer’s; or whether B is a close friend and K merely an acquaintance; or whether they are both perceived as close friends by Singer. Under no circumstances could Singer have clarified his gaffe to K, because it was not just a gaffe, it was an irreparable and embarrassing mistake. He can’t say to K, when he notices that K is taken aback, “dammit, I mistook you for B,” because if he did that, K would really have good reason to be astonished and think: Is this how he talks to B? I’m amazed. Because even if B is merely an acquaintance, on par with K, the ordinary remark that Singer uttered to K, whom he has mistaken for B, belied a familiarity that he possesses only when he talks to B, yet this remark was delivered to K, to whom he also talks when speaking directly to him with a certain familiarity, but that familiarity is different and wouldn’t have been regarded by K as familiarity but as confidentiality. And B similarly would not consider Singer’s remarks as familiar but as a spontaneous and natural confidentiality.
What was it he said to K, whom he thought was B? Something quite ordinary. Perhaps something about how dark the room was. Perhaps something about the film (or the jazz concert) they were about to see (or hear). Perhaps some slightly joking remark about the weather, the chairs, the table, the candlelight. Perhaps a comment about a third mutual acquaintance, Y, whom K also knows, spoken in a somewhat different tone than he would have used if talking to K about Y. Perhaps Singer even spoke of Y in a manner that K didn’t think was accurate, either because there were things about Y that K didn’t know, or because the remark about him was overly demeaning or overly positive. Or what if Singer said something about the darkness, expressed in a “dark” manner, a bit gloomily, with a hint of irony, which he never would use when talking about dark rooms with K; because with K he usually talked about things like dark rooms in a more direct manner, referring to, say, light switches: dark room = light switch off; bright room = light switch on. And so K was taken aback by the gloomy, metaphorical way in which Singer now spoke to him about the dark. And Singer couldn’t bear the thought that he, unintentionally, had initiated K into this confidentiality regarding his way of speaking of the dark that held true for him and B, who, by the way, may have been no more than an acquaintance, precisely as K may have been; in fact, this thought filled him with shame.
We should actually pause here to state that it may be difficult to understand why this should be so mortifying for Singer. He has, after all, only obeyed the basic rules of conversation, or of addressing someone with whom he’s well acquainted, in this case B. He speaks differently to B than he does to K because he knows B and K in different ways, and the contact that has been established between Singer and B is based on different experiences than the contact between Singer and K, even though all three of them know each other and have enough shared interests that they happen to show up at the same time in this dark room, gripped by the same interest in indie films or experimental jazz. But Singer shares something with B that he doesn’t share with K, something in his tone of voice, for example, a certain confidentiality, something about which he wants to be confidential, precisely because it’s B he is speaking to (and he is Singer). With K, he speaks differently, the tone between them is different, and that’s something everyone recognizes — that’s how we, in fact, speak with our friends and acquaintances, with a difference in words and tone from one friend to another, one acquaintance to another; and the only mistake Singer has made in this instance is that he thinks he’s talking to B when he’s actually talking to K, and surely that is forgivable! But that was not how he experienced it. He experienced this mistake as unforgivable.
Was it because he gave himself away? By what he said? For example, about the dark? By the veiled tone in which he spoke, which took K aback, which seemed so odd to him? The fact that K thought he spoke of the dark in a “profound” way, which literally shoved him out of here (away from K), precisely because it was a confidential gesture toward someone else, who wouldn’t have regarded the remark as “profound,” but as a confidence based on a mutual recognition of the relentlessness of the dark (which, when speaking to K, Singer would have linked to something positive, say, the turning a light switch on or off; that was their shared confidence about the same darkness, basically equally gloomy)? Don’t know, don’t know, Singer doesn’t know.
The only thing he did know was how he’d experienced the incident, both when it happened and when it popped up in his consciousness a short time later or long afterward. There was the fact that he’d revealed to K his ordinary, and yet naked, familiarity with B, a familiarity that had nothing to do with K. And the fact that he then had to resort to hiding, in shame. But why this incident, for example — about a different, more “profound,” and possibly more pretentious way of talking about the dark — should provoke in him such a pervasive embarrassment, and so long after the fact, was something he could not explain.
But perhaps it would be easier to understand if the conversation had dealt with a third person, meaning Y. Singer talks about Y, whom K also knows, though not very well. Singer talks about Y in a somewhat demeaning way, a little sarcastically — no, that’s not right. It would probably be easier to understand if he spoke of Y in a complimentary, almost admiring way, which takes K aback, and Singer, to his horror, realizes that he’s guilty of an embarrassing error, mistaking K for B, and it’s particularly mortifying because he has spoken of Y in an almost admiring way, which gives the remark he addresses to K, whom he thought was B, a familiarity that not only takes K aback, but also undoubtedly makes him feel a little self-conscious, because he isn’t prepared to receive this confiding, and admiring, remark about Y who is largely a peripheral figure for him, yet Singer speaks of Y in such a warm and familiar manner. When talking to B, it would have been natural to speak this way about Y, and it’s this confidentiality that K is allowed to hear; but for him it seems odd, even unnatural in all its familiarity; it’s as if he hasn’t heard Singer but instead the voice of some entirely different person, which takes him aback and might even make him feel a little self-conscious, embarrassed on Singer’s behalf. Because in this way K, unintentionally, receives insight into Singer’s “nakedness” when he brings up another person without meaning to; something he registers with a certain astonishment that he doesn’t understand and, possibly, with a vague sense of self-consciousness, and he wonders at Singer’s unnatural way of speaking. He has no idea that Singer has been caught in the act, in all his “nakedness.” He has merely heard something that takes him aback, an unnatural voice, an ingratiating way of speaking that he doesn’t recognize in Singer. He doesn’t know that it is Singer’s “nakedness” he has captured, and observed. But Singer knows it, and he has to hide his “nakedness,” his shame, in that moment. And while Singer behaves with a similar “nakedness” toward K, based on the confidentiality and familiarity that the two of them share, K does not experience this confidentiality as Singer’s “nakedness,” but as Singer himself, in the sense that it’s Singer, after all — this is Singer speaking about this and that, here in the dark, in the way that Singer usually speaks, and in a way that he, K, has not only grown accustomed to but has even learned to value (it must be assumed). When someone who has your confidence happens unintentionally to observe you as you are displaying a confidentiality toward someone else, that’s when this “nakedness” occurs in you, the person being observed. K sees an unfamiliar and different, more ingratiating, Singer, filled with affectation when he shows this other person his confidence; it’s a Singer who has been revealed in his “nakedness.” Singer completely stripped of all clothing, behind which he might hide before K, as he usually does in all his confidentiality. Singer is disrobed right before the eyes of K, who might well feel a little self-conscious, but fortunately he doesn’t know that he’s seeing Singer unclothed; yet Singer knows, and he can’t hide his shame from himself, or from anyone else who might know. Singer has to hide in some other way, he has to find somewhere to crawl into hiding, taking along his shame. No one must see him like this, wrapped only in his obscenely white, soft, and shapeless existence. Oh, all these mistakes made in the dark, throughout the years, in dark rooms, offering some sort of confidential information to the wrong man; Singer couldn’t bear to think about them. In countless variations these sorts of mistakes would pop up, not only in the dark, but also in broad daylight, in rain and wind, in sunshine and clear skies, he might mistake K for B; even though he saw that it was K he was speaking to, he might accidentally talk to him as if he were B, it was to B he could say such things about Y, and not to K. Too late, he would realize, on that deserted, brightly lit street corner, that it was to B he could and should say such things, and not to K, and he sees that K is taken aback. But K doesn’t know — not at this time either, on this deserted, sunny street corner — that Singer has mistaken him for B, even though Singer, of course, knows, and he sees that K is the one he’s talking to. If K had known, he would have realized that he was now seeing Singer the way he was in reality, as he put on airs for B by uttering such praise, even admiration, for Y. But K doesn’t know this, he is merely taken aback; and for a brief moment he levels a puzzled, almost searching look at Singer, who has now realized that he is guilty of a new, embarrassing mistake, in broad daylight, on this deserted, sunny street corner, where the detritus of existence is scattered around in the form of empty cigarette packs that have been smashed underfoot, greasy hot dog wrappers, wet clots of spittle, dried-out dog excrement, withered leaves that have shriveled after falling, even a banana peel, looking fresh and yellow with the pattern of the fruit still evident inside; and Singer tries feverishly to divert the conversation from the topic of Y, and eventually he succeeds, and he says goodbye to K and continues on, until one day, three months later, a year later, maybe five years later, he crosses a street and then this embarrassing mistake once again pops into his mind, and he goes rigid, as rigid as a post, as he raises both hands to his face, in broad daylight, to hide his expression, in full view of everyone, and he exclaims in despair: “No, no!” For Singer this was both quite annoying and a mystery.
